Filmmaker Mark Duplass Shares Career Advice

Filmmaker Mark Duplass Shares His Surprisingly Simple Key To Success

Mark Duplass has advice for anyone looking for career success. Quit waiting. Act now and recruit people that you trust who can support you.

“I’m a big fan of throwing yourself off the cliff creatively,” he said. “I’m not afraid of making mistakes anymore because I’ve made so many. How are you going to catch the bus if you’re not waiting for the bus when it comes?

“If I jump off this cliff, the worst that’s going to happen is I make something that’s not as good as I thought it would be, but I’ve surrounded myself with a tribe of people, that are also mentors to me. I’m a big believer in surround yourself with a tribe of people that can you can bounce ideas off of but who will also tell you the truth.”

Gentle reminder that there is something about you that is amazing and that no one else can do quite like you.

Duplass is an Olympic-level multi-tasker. The director, producer, actor and screenwriter, along with this brother Jay Duplass, is responsible for HBO shows like Togetherness and Animals. You may recognize him from The League, The Mindy Project or Zero Dark Thirty. The Duplass brothers also have a four-film agreement with Netflix, the first, Blue Jay, is making it’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It’s at TIFF that he’ll partner with the AXE Collective to mentor aspiring filmmaker who hope to one day be the next Mark Duplass.

“I’m very organized with my work,” Mark said. “Everything else in my life is chaos. My closet is a fucking nightmare. My car is a third-world country. There’s stuff from The League two years ago that I’ve never emptied out yet .There’s wardrobe from a movie last year. There’s a set of weights, in case I ever have any downtime so that I can try to get in shape. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Fine, so his car doesn’t set a good example. But Duplass is a standard-bearer for relentless work ethic and perseverance, which is why the notable filmmaker has partnered with the AXE Collective and artist John Legend, to mentor aspiring filmmakers during TIFF. Duplass, along with his brother Jay, are uniquely qualified to dole out advice to aspiring Hollywood-wannabes.

"They are singularly the most informed and instinctive filmmakers and businessmen in the industry," Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer once told Variety. "They know how to get a film made and they know how to get it seen"

Mark Duplass and Legend handpicked three up-and-coming filmmakers to give them the resources and platforms to showcase their talent in front of the industry’s tastemakers and influencers during the Toronto festival.

“I have accidently in my life fallen into a little bit of this role as a mentor to struggling filmmakers and I think the reason that happens is because I never really had a mentor growing up as an artist and I just kind beat my head against the wall for years trying to make something decent and gain some traction. I think I have a little bit of survival skills because of that.”